The Fallen Interlude
by scucci25
Summary: 7th year, Hermione's spiraling out of control...Draco is the only one who notices. Can he help her before she turns into someone she hates? HermioneDraco. 1st Fic! rating between K and T


**Disclaimer: Ok who is actually dumb enough to try to pass this off as their own idea? I mean common! (I'll only write this once, I don't own anything but the plot!)**

**Hi everyone! I've been reading on this site for awhile, so I finally decided to post a story of my own. It's my first one so I hope all goes well. I'll continue based on reviews because I'm such a bad judge of my own writing. If it's bad please tell me, but kindly:o) Okay onto the story! –scucci45**

Prologue-The Beginning and Memories

It had been only two months since the start of school, and yet it felt like Hermione had been there forever. She didn't know why she felt like this; the only thing she knew is that if she were forced to exist like this much longer she would explode. She was counting the days until the Christmas Holidays, although she didn't know why. Things at home weren't any better. She was always waiting for something, at school she waited for a holiday, and home she waited for school. This was her seventh year so finally come June the vicious cycle would end.

She couldn't talk to Harry about how she was feeling, he had his own problems. He worried about Voldemort, who was still at large, he grieved his godfather, for the years had offered no soothing, and like any teenage boy, he had the normal worries of a teenage boy, which no one but a fellow teenage boy could truly understand. Ron was concerned with Harry's well being god only knows if he ever sparred a thought on Hermione's behalf. And Ginny? That girl reached maturity only long enough to decide that being a naïve young girl was much more secure than joining the "adult" fight against you-know-who. She now existed in a world of boy bands, brightly coloured nail polish and the never ending gossip.

Yup, Hermione was all alone, and she knew it.

She'd become Head Girl, but even that honor seemed bitter sweet now. She'd received the honor and respect she'd dreamed of since first year, but along with it came her own dormitory and semi-private common room (shared with the Head Boy) which only further secluded her from the world she used to know, she was spiraling downward, she had been for over a year, and the worst part was that the bottom was no where in sight.

"Granger…….Granger………_Granger! _I'd really appreciate it if I could enter my own common room."

"Oh! Sorry." Hermione had been starring into space again, thinking about everything and nothing at the same time. She must have stood there long enough for Malfoy to come back and discover that she was blocking the portrait hole to their common room.

"You should be sorry! I'm Head Boy and I could give you detention anytime I like!" he sniggered to himself then noticed the glazed look that had returned her Hermione's eyes. "_Granger!"_

"Ugh sorry! What the hell do you want?" she responded angrily, snapping out of her intense thought once again.

"Nothing, it's just you haven't heard a word I said since I walked in here! What's up with you Granger? You haven't been you bookworm-self since September! Even then you seemed strange."

She began to remember the beginning of September, she'd walked into the Great Hall with a sense of relief, she was finally here! Done dealing with her annoying pig-headed parents for a whole nine months! Over the summer she had made a personal decision. She wouldn't sugar coat anything anymore. If Ron was acting like a dolt she would tell him, if Harry became his irrational, hero-like self she would put him in his place. She would not sit by and watch her last year in this massive school go by while silently hating everything her friends made her do. "Okay, she reasoned to herself, they never really _made_ me do anything, but still! Why should they be allowed to act like complete idiots and I have to be the rational, cool-headed one?" Just as she was finishing this revolutionary thought Ron came bolting up to her. "It's the first night here! What can he possibly want?" she mentally rolled her eyes.

"Mione! I need your help! Brief me on that book we had to read for Charms! It looked too boring to draw my attention…" he trailed off in a line of equally ridiculous excuses.

"Which one? Working With Your Wand or How to Become a Truly **Charm**ing Wizard?"

"Damn there were two of them? I need them both then."

"You know what Ron?" Hermione asked deciding to act upon her decisions and not just think them, "Why should I have to be the one who works all the time? I brief you on the summer readings _every_ September, I check your homework, and you even cheat off of me on tests for god sakes! I'm done! It's my last year here two and I really don't feel like doing double work!"

He looked shocked, but it only took him a second to formulate a response. Hermione was convinced that insults were the only original thoughts Ron ever had. "Fine Hermione! Forget it! What happened to the intelligent, helpful girl I've known for six years?"

"Well that's just not who I am anymore Ron!"

"Fine then who the hell are you!" he walked away violently, ears turning red at the tips.

That had been the start of it, "Who am i?" was the question that replaced all the empty space in her head. For six years she'd been hiding behind her friends, who was she? Who had she become? "Hmm" she thought to herself, "I've got a whole year to figure it out" That also marked the beginning of her "soul-search" and ultimately, her solitude.

"GRANGER!" for the love of God you're doing it again!" stated an extremely annoyed Malfoy.

"Oh what do you care?" she yelled as he interrupted her thoughts for a third time, "I'm just a mudblood after all!" she stressed the word mudblood, looking him straight in the eye as if to challenge him.

"You know what Granger you're right. I don't even know why I bothered asking in the first place!" With that he stormed off to his room.

"God!" Hermione thought to herself, "He's the only one paying any attention to me and all I want him to do is leave me alone!"

As Draco entered his private room and shut the door on Hermione and her crazy ideas he couldn't help but think, "God! Is she really so oblivious she can't even answer when someone other than a professor is speaking directly to her?" As both of them fumed the rut between them only deepened, making it that much harder for them to cross later on.

Whew! I'm not really sure where I want to go with this, so let me if I should continue. And I'd love reviews. Thx! I gg, I have a final tomorrow! Ahh!

3


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